


Dressed to Kill

by IrinyaClockworker



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Detective Noir, Gen, cliched as all get out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-10-23 15:50:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrinyaClockworker/pseuds/IrinyaClockworker
Summary: My name's Mihael Keehl, but only my friends call me that. My clients and my enemies just call me Mello. Up until today, I was a private detective. After today... well, judging from the bracelets, I'm probably going to be taking some time off.(Or, my brain kept telling me to write a Death Note noir AU, and this is what happened.)





	1. Prologue

Most people aren't interested in hearing any side of the story other than their own. I don't guess you're any different, but here goes nothing.

To most people, I'll probably just be that one psycho detective that killed a cop. To crooks, I'll be a problem that's finally out of the way. To a few others, I guess I'll be a hero.

Truth is, I'm not a psycho or a hero. But it doesn't much matter.

I'd say I'm a pretty regular guy with a pretty irregular job. You can find my office pretty easily, if you know where to look. Office hours are 8 to 8, but working hours are 24/7. 

I keep two very important things in that office. One’s a gun, and I keep it loaded. The other’s chocolate, and it keeps _me_ loaded.

My name's Mihael Keehl, but only my friends call me that. My clients and my enemies just call me Mello. Up until today, I was a private detective. After today... well, judging from the bracelets, I'm probably going to be taking some time off. 

The story'll probably be out soon--this sort of thing can't stay under wraps for long. And it's a sure bet that nobody's going to be asking me for my side of it. Pity, since it's quite the tale. 

Like I said, I'm no lunatic. I'm not your typical killer. I saw the evidence and I did what I had to. 

I doubt anyone'll print the truth about what happened. In fact, most people will probably never know it. But there's a good reason why I did what I did.

Yeah, there's a damn good reason why I killed Light Yagami.


	2. Lawliet

It started out the same way most of my cases start--in my office. I was reading through some old case notes I'd retrieved the day before. Technically I wasn't supposed to have them, but I needed them.

See, these weren't _my_ case notes. These were the case notes of a dead man, and somewhere in there I was sure I'd find something, something that would tell me how and why he died.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Let me start from the _real_ beginning.

Let me start where all my stories should start--with Lawliet.

I doubt that name means anything to you, so I'll explain. He was the same as me--Lawliet was his name, but most just knew him as L, a great private eye who worked with the buttons on a lot of tricky cases, and solved plenty more on his own besides.

He was also my mentor.

L was the one who came first, and when he died, his students went out into the world themselves. Yeah, that's right. Student _s_ , plural. The rest come in later.

It happened a few years back. Came as a shock to everyone--the best PI in the city, if not the entire country, suddenly dying like that--no, being murdered. It looked like an accident, but it wasn't. We all knew it from the moment we heard. And I spent the years after that trying to get my hands on the notes I was reading that day.

See, L was smart. If someone was going to kill him, it wouldn't have been for no reason--it would've been because he got too close to something that someone didn't want him finding. And there had to be some sort of clue in his notes. If there was anywhere I could find a lead, it'd be there.

Most of it was just stuff on his old cases--the case of Benjamin Bannister, also known as the mad murderer Beyond, the poisoned alcohol case that became a knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred war that left one detective dead and another incapacitated, the mafia kidnapping debacle... I had to pause and get some chocolate before continuing. I'd need my brain at full power for anyone who could get the jump on L.

When I got through all the old files, there were only a few left. Three, to be exact. One was pretty thin, and I figured I'd rule it out first.

It hardly had anything in it--a shot of a man in a suit and glasses, his name(Teru Mikami), and a few notes. The guy was a shyster with a reputation for perfection, who lost so few cases that some of his 'friends' had started figuring he had to be dirty. All L had to say on the matter was that he couldn't find any evidence of anything that wasn't on the level at all. It was pretty clear that L wasn't close to uncovering any big secrets on him--at least, not ones worth killing for.

The next file didn't have much either, just a note on the odd deaths of a couple big-name crooks. They'd all been killed in the same way, was the kicker: fatally poisoned via injection. The file had a name and photo in it, too--Light Yagami. Now why was one of the most respected cops in the city in a file like that? L hadn't written anything else. If Yagami had something to do with his death, I'd have to find the connection myself.

The last file was thick enough to need two folders, both marked like they were important, and I knew who it belonged to without having to check. I'd exhaust all other possible leads before opening that file. 

I put it down, and took another bite of my chocolate. I didn't think Mikami would give me much, and I was a lot more curious about those killings. L hadn't died that way, but the suspicious file contents had hooked me. 

If I was going to start anywhere, it would be with Light Yagami.


	3. Informants

The first thing I decided to do was get my informants on the case. If something _was_ off about Yagami, I couldn't just go up and ask him about it. If he was dirty, I'd be setting myself up to die the same way L did. And I couldn't die until I caught whoever was responsible.

This time I figured all three of them could come in handy. 

Matt's a card shark, my best friend and best inside man, able to change his appearance on a whim and crack pretty much any lock I set him to. He's a real wise guy, but he can get along with pretty much anyone he meets, and he's great for infiltration--and providing most of the cash we get aside from case fees. 

As usual, he was in the waiting room of my office, playing with a deck. He looked up when he heard me, and grinned. "Hey, Mels. Learned a new trick."

Couldn't help but smile at that, really. It's hard to be in a bad mood around him. "Nice job. I've got another job for you if you want it."

"Like I could say no? Fleecing those suckers is _fun._ What're you after?"

"I need information on Light Yagami. Any skeletons in his closet, any connections that're out of order. I think I may've found a lead on what happened to Lawliet."

"The chief's kid?" Matt's eyes widened. "Whoa. You really think a bull was involved?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But his name and picture were in L's files. That's not a definite clue, but it's something, and I'm going to figure out what."

"...And you're sure it has something to do with how he died? You know it could've been--"

"It's not that," I interrupted. "And if it is... I'll turn it over to the police."

Matt whistled, looking very surprised. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that before, Mels. You really don't want to mess with him, do you?"

"No. No, I don't." I made sure that my tone couldn't be misunderstood-- _this conversation is over._

Matt always knows when to stop pushing me, and that day was no different. He could tell that continuing along those lines would just end in me getting ticked and there being tension between us for a good while. So instead of continuing to ask, he went quiet, just nodding. He wouldn't ask again, at least not for a while.

At least, that was my hope. Sometimes he got too worried for his own good and forgot to keep his mouth shut. I guess that's something I should be grateful for--having someone worrying about me, and all. (He is _not_ going to be happy when he finds out about all this mess. My bad.) But there are definitely times when I just want him to shut up before he pushes me too far, and this was definitely one of those times. Luckily, he got the message. "I'll see what I can turn up," he promised, and I tried my best to smile again before walking out.

 

My second informant was one that, depending on your sensibilities, you might not be too fond of. God knows I've heard plenty about her, but I'm sure not interested in hearing criticism. She's sweet, but more than that, she's useful.

She goes by Sonia, and if you've read much Dostoevsky I bet you can guess what she does just fine. For her sake, I won't put her real name here. She likes to keep her personal and professional lives separate, and I can't say I blame her. I use her for people too suspicious for Matt, and in situations that need a more feminine touch.

I found her in the same sort of place I usually do. Her face lit up the moment she saw me, and she was at my side in a flash, stretching up to plant a kiss on my cheek. From anyone else, I'd have hated it, but Sonia's like my sister, always worrying about her little brother getting himself shot. Which, in my line of work, isn't too unreasonable a fear. Though I guess at least she doesn't have to worry about that anymore.

"Misha," she greeted warmly, pulling back and smiling. "Haven't seen you in weeks. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."

"You know I couldn't do that," I replied, smiling back at her. No shame in that. I'd rather not get into details, but to make it quick, she helped me out during a pretty tough time. Probably saved my life, _definitely_ saved my sanity. I'd probably be as cuckoo as Beyond if it weren't for her. There's a reason I care about her, and it's not just because she's useful.

"What do you need, then?" She tilted her head, still smiling.

"I need you to get as much information as you can on Light Yagami," I replied.

 _"Yagami?"_ She drew back further, and glared at me a bit. "Misha, honey, you know I'm on your side, but you want me messing around with the buttons?" She sounded outraged, but I'd asked for a lot before.

"What'd make it worth your while?" I asked, knowing that I was already prepared for her request. I was pulling out bills even as I spoke, and held them out before she could respond.

"You're the bees' knees, Misha," she said cheerfully, taking the money with a smile. This was a staple of our relationship, to be honest. I cared about her, and vice versa, but life wasn't free and she needed to make a living as much as I did. "Be careful, okay? Don't get mixed up in anything too risky." We both knew what she meant by that, and for a moment it got awfully tough to keep smiling. 

"You know I'm smarter than that," I replied with a slight shrug. Hopefully she'd chalk it up to smarts and not fear. That particular thing she was referring to--and we both knew it was one specific thing, and not a general warning--was something I'd have preferred to never get involved with again. Literally anyone else could handle it, but not me. Never me.

She wished me luck one more time, and then I moved on and left her to her work. 

I still had one last informant to see, and that meant meeting up with an old 'friend'.


	4. Beyond (Reason)

To get to my last informant, there was someone else I had to go through first. And I was _not_ looking forward to that. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have a choice.

As usual, he didn't seem surprised to see me at all. Then again, it was more than up for debate if anything could surprise him. His eyes lifted and landed on me the moment he heard my footsteps, and he looked at me silently for a long moment before speaking in a completely toneless voice.

"Mihael," he said, and I bristled. Like I said, it's my _friends_ who call me by my real name. The boy in front of me was a lot of different things, but I wouldn't call him a friend. 

"Near," I said coolly, and for a moment I thought I saw a flash of disappointment in his eyes. But that was an absurd thought. Near isn't the emotional type--he'll probably hear about all this business and just shrug it off. I don't expect him to have any fond feelings towards me, or any feelings at all, for that matter.

"You've come to see him in person," Near observed.

"I can see why you got this job," I replied, acid in my voice. "Yeah, I'm here. You going to let me through?"

"You're not going to assist him, are you?"

"Like I'd let a walking cuckoo clock like him onto the streets? Let me past, Near."

He looked at me for another long moment, but then nodded and moved aside slightly, just enough to let me past. I didn't bother to wait for him to move any more, and just pushed past him--when it comes down to physical strength, I outdo Near no question, so he was lucky I even bothered to ask his permission. 

"How's your hand?" he asked, as if out of idle curiosity rather than some last-ditch attempt to get under my skin. I didn't bother replying. A question like that didn't deserve an answer, especially not if it came from him.

 

I knew exactly where to go from there, and followed the familiar path to where I knew I'd find my final and least favorite informant. Don't get me wrong, he has his uses, particularly when it comes to the criminal mind or, in this case, the police. But it's awfully hard to say you're fond of someone when the person in question is a serial killer.

"Mihael!" he greeted cheerfully, a sharp grin spreading across his face, just a bit too wide. To most people, the sight might be disturbing--with his body covered in burn scars and an unsettling gleam in his eyes, he could be a frightening sight. But he was behind bars, and I was used to his appearance, anyway.

"Benjamin," I replied flatly. He laughed, an ugly, threatening sound. 

"You drive a hard bargain, _Mello,_ " he conceded. "What's the damage? Not too often you come to see me. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were scared."

"But you _do_ know better." I paused, and waited for his smile to disappear. "I need everything you've got on Light Yagami."

"...Light Yagami, huh?" Beyond hummed thoughtfully. "Oh, I _like_ him. He's _fun._ So angry."

"Angry?" I interrupted, intrigued. I'd met Yagami, and he seemed pretty well put together. Calm, polite, smart, et cetera. The perfect son. Anything but _angry._

"Oh, yeah. He's good at playing nice, isn't he? You should see him when no one's looking. He keeps the good looks back for the fish." Beyond winked. "He's got more than enough potential to be like us, if he isn't already."

"You and I are _not_ the same."

"Aren't we?" His eyes widened, and for a long while it felt like I didn't have a single secret left. That was what made Beyond so useful--he _saw_ people, not just their facades. Still, it was uncanny to have him do that to me. "Mello, is that true? There isn't anyone you'd like to kill anymore? You don't want to find the mug that offed Lawliet and take him out with your bare hands?" He paused, and then smiled again, twisted and humorless. "And speaking of hands--"

"All right!" I almost shouted, making him laugh again. "You've made your point, _Benjamin._ " 

"I just want to make sure you won't forget yourself," he said innocently, as though he hadn't just been trying to get me hot under the collar. "You know I'll be so proud of you if you off those two. Little Mello, all grown up... the thought's enough to make me want to cry."

He was making me want to give him a _reason_ to cry. If he hadn't been behind bars, I probably would've done it, too.

 _Sometimes_ he's helpful, but most of the time he seems to get a twisted enjoyment out of aggravating me. He's entirely unreliable and untrustworthy, but when he _does_ come through... Well, in this case I was almost certain that he really did want me to get the person behind L's death--if not out of any goodness, then out of his want for revenge.

Beyond had wanted to kill L himself, but someone else had gotten there first. There was no way he'd take that lying down. If he'd been free, he'd have happily tracked the bastard down himself, but since he was on ice, that left the job to me. I'm sure he saw me as a proxy for him, and that was why he helped. He can be satisfied now, knowing that I've finished it.

"Is Yagami who you're looking at for Lawliet?" he asked, his eyes glittering. "Do you think you can tell him my name, when you kill him? And let me see a picture of the body..."

"We'll see," I replied flatly. "Don't get your hopes up. I don't know if he's connected at all, yet."

"I'm sure he is," Beyond said with a smile. "Didn't I tell you? He could be just like us."

I didn't want to use the energy it would take to respond to that, so I just turned and walked out, his cheery "Come back soon, Mihael!" echoing behind me.

 

"You're investigating Light Yagami?" Near asked when he saw me. Of course he'd been hanging out his ear, the little creep. "Is that wise, Mello? L had other, more likely enemies."

"Call it a hunch."

"Be rational, Mello. Maybe he got too close to--"

"It isn't that." I was getting _real_ tired of having to say it. "I'm positive that it isn't."

"...Are you?"

"Don't push your luck, Near."

I didn't give him a chance to respond before leaving. It was time to start my _own_ work.


	5. (No) Better Than You

The case promised to be a hard one. After all, anyone who could put L on ice was someone I'd be afraid to go solo against. So why didn't I enlist the cops? Two reasons.

One, I could hardly have Yagami finding out I was looking into L's death. If he _was_ involved that'd just end with me dead in a gutter.

Two... working with the buttons meant working with Near. And there was-- _is_ \--no way I'd ever do that.

Why not? Well, that's a really long story. Hell, it goes all the way back to when we were kids. See, for all intents and purposes, Near and I don't exist. We're not in any system you might care to check. 'Mello' and 'Near' don't mean anything except as the names of the two sharpest detectives around.

The two of us are, or _were, _L's students and heirs. He taught us everything we know, bringing us up as the successors to his title--the name and mantle of the most brilliant private eye you could ever ask for.__

__But things went pear-shaped._ _

__Everything went to hell, and then I wasn't an option anymore. I don't much like to talk about it, so let's leave it at that when it comes to descriptions. Near became L's only heir and took his place after he died; Mello, the second, the damaged and defective, found himself on his own._ _

__I survived, obviously, and I'd say I've made a decent name for myself, but in the end Near is still the one people know best, the one the high-ups and the bulls turn to. The best of us._ _

I'm not the worst off of L's students, though. Beyond was one of them, one of us--partnered up with the first of us, a brilliant kid who went by Ace but was named Alice. Nice girl, _too_ nice. The things she saw drove her out of her mind, and then one day we got a call that B'd spotted a floater who looked awfully familiar. When we pulled her in, well. She was already gone. 

__He wasn't ever the same after that, and to be honest no one was as surprised as they probably should have been when he went off his head, too. But unlike Ace, he decided to take some others with him._ _

__He scratched three people in less than a month, and then tried to turn himself into his last victim via self-immolation. He was found before he could succeed, but the burn scars still cover almost all of his body._ _

__He says we're the same, and in a way, he's right. All I have to do is look in a mirror to know that._ _

__And then there's Matt, who never cared about the place of L and only wanted to do what he enjoyed--something I've made sure to give him._ _

Of all of us, the one I hate is Near. He took what should have been mine, what only _wasn't_ because of _bad luck._ It could have been either of us. He just got off easy. 

__It's useless to complain, but that doesn't mean I don't resent having it taken from me._ _

But if I could solve that case, if I could find L's killer, I'd prove that I was still a worthy heir, to myself, to the police, to Near, to _everyone._ Even to L. And now I've done it, I've won. 

__You see now, L? I was always meant for this._ _


	6. Steady

I couldn't get involved with the police. Not officially, anyway. But there was one person on the force who I knew I could use, and for the first part of my investigation into Yagami, I decided to go to him.

Walking straight up to him while he was on the clock wouldn't do me any good, I knew that much. Plus, it'd just be a hassle. I'd have to go through Soichiro Yagami, which was a drag I didn't want to deal with. It's not that I had something against the guy--the opposite, actually. Soichiro Yagami was one of the few people in this entire damn city that the dirt never seemed to stick to. And there was a hell of a lot of that, especially if you were a cop.

No, it was more that he was _too_ good. And when it came to me, too _concerned._ Which was nonsense; I was doing fine. It had been a long, long time since I'd been knocked out of the running, and the events that had led up to it, and I was getting more than sick of people bringing it up to me, people _worrying_ about me. 

It wasn't like I blamed him for it, though I easily could have. I just wanted him, and everyone else, to never mention it to me again.

 

Going on about that's useless. What's important is what happened next.

The person I went to was, as I already mentioned, a cop, specifically a guy called Touta Matsuda. Nice enough... to be annoying, that is. I don't trust people who are too nice. Half the time they're just sugarcoating some dirty little secret, or maybe a secret that isn't so little. But Matsuda was pretty damn genuine, even if it drove me up the wall.

Luckily for me, he was also pretty damn gullible.

 

I knew when he was off work, and I waited for him, running over the contents of the notes again in my mind while I did. The idea of Light Yagami being corrupt was an odd one to me, but if both L and Beyond suspected him... Not that it mattered without solid evidence, of course. I couldn't do anything to him without that.

Matsuda appeared soon enough, and I stood up, making my way over to him and putting on my best smile. Writing down the details of the conversation would bore both me and you to tears, so let's skip past the pleasantries and small talk and go straight to the important part--when I got him to start talking about Yagami.

"He's been swell lately," Matsuda said excitedly, clearly not even considering the possibility that I might not actually give a damn about what Yagami was up to beyond whether or not he was the one who'd killed my mentor.

"Yeah?" I'm not exactly an actor, but at the very least I was good enough and he was oblivious enough to think I was sincerely interested. 

"He got himself a steady," the man confided in the same tone he might have used to say 'he killed a man'. Both of which turned out to be true, of course. "Total roundheels. The sort who's pretty much anyone's type, but there he is with her all over him. Sounds like the dream, huh?"

I managed to pull off a convincing agreement, even though my mind was anywhere but where he thought it was. A girlfriend... Worth investigating. "She something special, then?"

"I'd say so. Name's Misa Amane--sings down at the Forbidden Fruit. Damn popular, too."

 _Misa Amane, Forbidden Fruit._ Those were the words I gave Sonia the next day--I knew the bar, but I'd never been inside it. Sonia knew her way better around that sort of environment than I did, and while I planned to try to find other useful information connected to Amane, I wanted Sonia to try and befriend her and get information from the girl herself.

"No problem at all," she said, winking. "We'll be best pals before you know it." And of course, I expected nothing less.

 

The day passed pretty quickly after that. Some dame with a superiority complex and a fur coat waltzed in just before I locked up and demanded that I prove that her lover was seeing another woman, the sort of boring as hell job that I was often relegated to. Of course, I'd get her what she wanted, but at the time I was distracted and just put the information she'd given me in the top drawer of my desk, telling myself I'd come back to it within the hour.

I didn't get the chance.

 

Just as I was turning to head back out of the office, the phone rang. _Who could that be at this hour?_

I wasn't expecting anyone in particular, but the voice on the other end managed to shock me anyway.

"Near?"

"Mello." There was a hint of urgency in his voice, one that I wasn't used to hearing. "Come to the station, now."

I didn't like getting ordered around by Near, so I just relaxed a bit, leaning against the wall. "Yeah? And why should I do that?"

"It's about Beyond."

Now _that_ got my attention. I tensed, standing up as if expecting to have to run at any moment. "Don't tell me he escaped."

"It's not that, Mello." Near paused for a moment that was far too long, and then spoke again, two words that sent chills down my spine. They were words that altered the course of the investigation, further cemented my views, and also, quite frankly, scared the hell out of me, because they meant that _someone knew what I was doing._ And chances are, I was high on their hit list.

"He's dead."


End file.
